News: March 2nd Broadcast Explains Legion Mechanic, Raizers and Musketeers to See Support in BT16

Following the end of Link Joker earlier today Bushiroad aired a special broadcast on NicoNico Douga, discussing the upcoming Legion Mate season and some of the card mechanics therein. The program was introduced by Doctor O, with the anime being addressed by the voices of Sendou Aichi and Kai Toshiki, Yonaga Tsubasa and Satou Takuya; Satou confirmed for the fans that Kai will be the main protagonist of Legion Mate, and to Yonaga's distress that Aichi will be disappearing during the season.

When things came back to Doctor O, the viewers were treated to two jumbo-sized replicas of the upcoming TD14: Seeker of Hope cards. The deck's key grade 2, Blaster Blade Seeker, is a variation on the established field control formula. Like the traditional Blaster Blade he can retire a grade 2 or greater rearguard, but this is only when placed on a rearguard circle and costs just a single counterblast as opposed to past incarnations' two. Blade Seeker may require a Seeker vanguard to do so, but this is difficult to confirm from NND's low resolution.

What really drew surprise from the broadcast's 18,000 viewers was the explanation of the new Legion Mate mechanic and the skill of Seeker, Sacred Wingal. Sacred Wingal's Activate skill is not a limit break, but instead activates Legions it to Blaster Blade Seeker by matching up their Legion icons. Wingal can pay a cost of shuffling four units from the drop zone into the deck, to become joined with Blade Seeker as one unit with a total base power of 20000. Wingal's autoskill then triggers at the moment that it has been Legioned, letting it superior call a grade 2 or greater Seeker from the deck.

How exactly Legion Mate interacts with established mechanics is unknown. Legion units becoming a 20000 power base during their own turn was described as a typical attribute of the Legion Mate mechanic, so presumably most if not all Legion cards for this upcoming season will be a base 11000 grade 3 and base 9000 grade 2.

Interestingly, the introduction of Legion Mate may mark either an end or shaky coexistence with limit break; addressing the longstanding issue of the game's pace becoming more oriented around being at 4 damage over time, the only condition observed on Legion Mate skills is the ability to have a Mate on the field. Legion activates when a vanguard and rearguard with paired Legion icons are matched up, which gives their cardfighter greater freedom of choice on when to use skills, and rewards successful timing for using Legion Mate when the opponent is already at higher damage by giving them innately greater power to work with. Conversely, using Legion too early wastes a skill that can only be used as many times as the Mate unit can be played from the hand.

Doctor O revealed several different upcoming pairs of Legion units, including those from Brawler of Friendship and an alternate set of Legion cards from Seeker of Hope, but what drew the most excitement were the units from VG-BT16: Legion of Dragons and Blades. Nova Grappler will be receiving a pair of Raizer units with the new mechanic to round out their build, while Neo Nectar will start the season off with paired Musketeer units.

Additionally, Doctor O assured everyone that Tokura Misaki will also be returning with Legion cards, much to the relief of her voice actor, Kitta Izumi. What clan she will be using is unknown. Many fans are clamoring for her to return to Oracle Think Tank while others have suggested she stay with Genesis, but neither clan is currently scheduled to be supported by BT16.

The program was closed out by Morishima Shuuta, voice of Shin Nitta, who asked the audience to help him with the cheer "Ride the Vanguard!" The cards covered by the NND conference will be given better coverage in the upcoming seventh issue of Monthly Bushiroad magazine. A recording of the broadcast will go up tomorrow.

3/3/2013 Update: The broadcast has been uploaded to YouTube. Highlights include an explanation of the Legion mechanic at the 22 minute mark, Blaster Blade Seeker and Sacred Wingal's debut at 23:37 as well as the introduction of Raizer and Musketeer support from 28:19 on.

News: TV Tokyo Commercial Reveals Plot for Legion Mate, Nouvelle Vague to Hit International Shores in June

This morning Japanese TV channel TV Tokyo aired a commercial for the upcoming fourth season of Cardfight!! Vanguard, Legion Mate, sparking a flood of images and comments over Twitter from Japanese fans. TV Tokyo's official website also updated with a synopsis of the season's upcoming storyline:

Just days after a deadly fight against Link Joker that involved the whole world,everything is peaceful and the usual calm days have came back. 

But, Kai Toshiki faces a surprising situation. 

Sendou Aichi, the hero who saved the world from the invasion of Link Joker, suddenly disappeared. Along with peoples' memory of his existence…While there are few clues to go by, Kai will seek Aichi with only the proof of their bond, “Blaster Blade” and a Royal Paladin deck. 

Fighters named the “Quatre Knights” appear before Kai. The four fighters—Gaillard, Neve, Ratie and Serra—are world class fighters in Vanguard.

They use a mysterious power and tell Kai to give up seeking Aichi.What is their purpose…?! And what is their relationship with Aichi…?!Receiving the new power "Legion," Kai's fight to get Aichi back, starts now!!

The commercial for Legion Mate showed Kai's role as the protagonist prominently, featuring him alongside the surviving Team Q4 members, as well as Naoki, Ren and Miwa. Naoki and Kai's new friendship has been emphasized in the commercial, while a poster for the series seen above features the antagonistic Quartre Knights, each of which appears to be a counterpart of a member from Q4.

Another image from the commercial gave early details on some of the cards from TD14: Seeker of Hope, revealing that Blaster Blade Seeker will be a grade 2 with 9000 power and 5000 shield, and that Sacred Wingal will be a base 11000 power grade 3. Legion Mate is set to air on March 9 in Japan, exactly one week after Link Joker ends on March 2 this weekend.

In international news, two extra boosters were confirmed for an English release today, with VGE-EB08: Champions of the Cosmos and VGE-EB09: Divine Dragon Progression getting a dual release on June 6, 2014. The primary draws of EB08 are its crossride units Immortal Asura Kaiser and Galaxy Blaukluger, along with the legacy support for the old cards that they bring. Since Champions of the Cosmos' Japanese release last November the Galaxy Blaukluger deck has gradually climbed up the ranks of VGCS tournaments to become the dominant competitive option for Nova Grappler, much as the original Blaukluger had back in 2011.

Divine Dragon Progression is based around the cards used by Kai Toshiki in the more recent volumes of the manga and is the better known set by far, chiefly for the infamy of its cover card Dragonic Nouvelle Vague. As the first fully implemented grade 4 unit, Nouvelle Vague's designers are held to have overcompensated for its unwieldy nature with extensive options for deck searching and field control, and skills that both prevent it from being guarded with grade 0 units and passively nullify the opponent's trigger checks. These qualities were not in the card's original intention--Itou had envisioned Nouvelle as nullifying both players' trigger checks and not having the Twin Drive!! ability--and have snowballed along with Kagerou's self-standing break ride support to create a deck that can attack multiple times with its vanguard while preventing the opponent from guarding those attacks while also sitting on an unnaturally high 13000 base power and destroying the opposing rearguards to prevent them from fighting back. Nouvelle has thus superseded Link Joker in Japan as the dominant deck of competitive play, leading to the restriction of Lizard Soldier Conroe who was a major linchpin in the deck's consistency. The build is currently considered wounded but playable, as it has continued to dominate Japanese Vanguard Championships alongside Omniscience Regalia Minerva, accounting for up to 18% of all decks played in some cases.

EB08 will feature a promotional print of Nova Grappler's original critical trigger, Shining Lady, with her 2011 anime artwork as a box topper, while EB09 will get a print of Dragon Dancer Arabella.

2/28/2014 Update: The Nova Grapplers will also be receiving a special Sneak Preview playmat that can be won by participating in the extra boosters' dual launch event. This time the playmat will be of Galaxy Blaukluger. Unlike with EB04 and EB05, there will be a second playmat representing the Kagerou side. Which unit will be featured is unknown but it is speculated to be Dragonic Nouvelle Vague. Those that take part in the Sneak Preview will also receive a PR/101EN Chain Blaster Dragon. Back in Japan, Chain Blast had been a Monthly Bushiroad promo, and was known for his ability to simultaneously retire three of the opponent's rearguards by discarding two grade 3 units with his limit break, while searching for those grade 3s with his non-limit break skill. Sneak Preview events will be taking place around the world on May 30, May 31 and June 1, with the final dates determined by the hosting store.

In other news, VG-BT15: Infinite Rebirth officially released in Japan today. While there was some trouble with international sellers in Singapore stocking the set before the street date, the surprises surrounding the set were limited this time due to all of BT15's RRR and RR-rarity cards being known from promotional materials released ahead of time. What is drawing the most attention at this time is that the newly released Triple Reverse rarity card, Star-vader “Ω” Glendios, is now selling for as high as 6000~8000 yen (approx. $60~$80 in US money) higher than any other single card in the history of the game, including its immediate predecessor Chaos Breaker Dragon who sold for as most as a Japanese booster box at release. Although Link Joker usage has waned considerably since the release of Dragonic Nouvelle Vague in Japan, Glendios has gotten particular attention not just for its unique rarity but also due to the host of supporting units that have helped it along, in particular Cold Death Dragon and “Яeverse” Cradle.

Glendios' core strategy is built around its alternate win condition, having all of the opponent's rearguards Locked at the beginning of its cardfighters' main phase while also having five damage, but requires repeatedly discarding “Я” cards to use its highly defensive Omega Lock ability that prevents cards from opening during the end phase. The disadvantage to this is that prior to “Я” Cradle, all Reverse cards came from other clans and Glendios could only make Reverse cards already on the field into Link Joker units, so the deck had a crippling weakness in that it was forced to run between 12 and 16 grade 3s with many of them being of the wrong clan and having the Lord skill that prevents them from attacking unless Glendios is on the vanguard circle. “Я” Cradle neutralized this by giving both a Reverse card to Link Joker so that only a limited number of cards from other clans would need to be used, and also sharing his ability to turn Reverse units into Link Jokers. Meanwhile Cold Death Dragon is a grade 2 that when called can put the top card of the opponent's deck into play Locked for counterblast 1, on the condition that they already have a Locked card. This makes it easier to achieve the deck's win condition as the opponent does not have the option of leaving some circles empty to prevent cards from being Locked. With the addition of Ruin Magician and Praseodymium, grade 1 units that can add Reverse cards back to the hand from the drop zone and unflip damage respectively, the Glendios build has evolved into an effective alternate strategy that has even secured independence from Infinite Zero Dragon, but some have criticized it as lacking interaction with the game compared to Chaos Breaker or Nebula Lord and shutting the opponent down too heavily to promote interesting gameplay.

Press Release: Bushiroad Announces Cardfight!! Vanguard Team League 2014 Plans

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Bushiroad Announces Cardfight!! Vanguard Team League 2014 Plans

Los Angeles, CA (February 24, 2014) – Bushiroad announced their plans for their 2^nd Cardfight!! Vanguard Team League series which will take place between April to July 2014. The Cardfight!! Vanguard “Team League” tournament series focuses on the team format. Players of all ages may form teams, consisting of 3 members, to face off against other teams.

The key change between Team League 2013 and Team League 2014 is the featured Regional Championships across multiple countries between April to July 2014.  These Regional Championships will lead up to the Continental Championships for each of the 3 regions (North America, EU, Asia-Oceania) in July 2014. Bushiroad will sponsor the travel and accommodation fees of most winning teams from each Regional Championship.

 [North America]

April 18-19	Mexico, México D.F.
April 19-20	Canada, Vancouver
May 3-4	USA, New York
May 17-18	USA, Atlanta
June 13-14	USA, Columbus
July 4	USA, Los Angeles

 

[Europe]

April 19-20	France, Paris
May 3-4	Germany, München
May 10-11	Sweden, Stockholm
June 28-29	United Kingdom, Scotland
June (TBC)	Portugal, Coimbra
July (TBC)	Ireland, Dublin
July (TBC)	United Kingdom, London

[Asia-Oceania]

Dates	Location
April 26-27	Philippines, Metro Manila
May (TBC)	Indonesia, Jakarta
June 7-8	Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur
June 21-22	Australia, Melbourne
June 21-22	Singapore

* Dates and locations are subject to change.

For an immersive experience within the current Cardfight!! Vanguard narrative universe, players form teams to “protect” or “invade” their region during the Cardfight!! Vanguard Team League 2014. Teams who choose to protect are the “Cray Defenders,” while teams who invade are the “Void Invaders.” The results will be updated on Cardfight!! Vanguard’s website and Facebook page to reflect the progress of the campaign. 

The Cardfight!! Vanguard Team League 2014 will be held in conjunction with the “Neo-Showdown” and “Buddy Challenge,” which will be the first major English tournaments for Weiβ Schwarz and Future Card Buddyfight respectively.

Producer of the English Edition Cardfight!! Vanguard and Weiβ Schwarz, and Co-Producer of Future Card Buddyfight, Shunichi Taira explained that the changes in the qualifying format were to cater to the growing communities for Cardfight!! Vanguard, WeiβSchwarz and Future Card Buddyfight. “We are excited to have future major events feature all current English editions of our games. We will plan for these events to be held in multiple central locations around the world to cater to players everywhere”.

More information can be found at the respective links below:

Cardfight!! Vanguard Team League 2014: http://cf-vanguard.com/en/event/team-league-2014/

News: Card Lores to Cease Web Publication on February 28th

Early this morning in Japan the card of the today profile for Dragonic Overlord the "Яe-birth" brought with it a special announcement. On February 28th, the "Unit Information" feature in the Japanese card of the day profiles will end, with card profiles being moved exclusively to Monthly Bushiroad magazine as "Unit Description Original Novels: Stories from the Planet Cray." In place of the card lores, on March 3rd the Today's Card section will instead feature "A Word from Vanguard R&D" discussing card mechanics and the design ideas behind cards.

Monthly Bushiroad's most recent short story, page 1/3.

The announcement comes as a major disappointment to international fans, and has been subject to strong criticism in the west. While the English-language equivalent column never included the "Unit Information" section, unofficial translations of the Japanese card profiles have been circulated since they first began in January 2011. By dropping these lores from web circulation and moving them exclusively to Monthly Bushiroad--which until now had specialized in supplementary short stories about the units--the card game's narrative has been restricted to a much smaller readership of Japanese-literate consumers.

As Japanese fans rarely provide clear scans of Monthly Bushiroad, this may be the end of the card lore for the west. Overseas fans would have to purchase and scan issues of the magazine to make the lore easily available again. As Monthly Bushiroad is an anthology-sized monthly magazine with a short print run, and subscriptions to foreign publications are difficult to obtain in the United States without going through Kinokuniya, the task of acquiring and scanning each month's short stories is daunting. And because the lores are also longer and more detailed, and cannot be quickly transcribed for assistance from electronic dictionaries and machine translators, the translation will also prove considerably more difficult than before.

News: Sixteenth Booster Set "Legion of Dragons and Blades" Announced, Lock on Victory New Character Profiles

The first booster set of Cardfight!! Vanguard's fourth season, Legion Mate, is scheduled to go on sale in Japan on May 16th. VG-BT16: Legion of Dragons & Blades (竜剣双闘 Ryuukensoutou "Dragon and Sword Fighting Together") will feature cards for the Royal Paladin, Narukami, Nova Grappler, Dimension Police, Spike Brothers and Neo Nectar clans, and will feature cards used by Kai Toshiki supporting the new "Legion" system. Additionally, BT16 will introduce a new rarity above or on the same level as Special Parallel, Legion Rare. The set size will be the same as BT09-BT15, 102 cards with 8 RRR, 12 RR, 22 R and 60 C cards, but with the addition of 2 LRs. The set will feature one reprint, thought to be Blaster Blade Seeker from TD14. Like in Seeker of Hope and Brawler of Friendship, the cover art for Legion of Dragons & Blades is a single continuous piece, lending to the interpretation that its two cover cards will interact in a way similar to Blaster Blade Seeker and Sacred Wingal in TD14. What has captured the imaginations of both Japanese and international fans alike is the cover dragon's resemblance to the boss card of the Shadow Paladin clan, Phantom Blaster Dragon, and his past incarnation from the Cardfight!! Vanguard Gaiden: Shining Swordsman manga.

Left: Guardian Saint Dragon, Sing Saver Dragon (Gaiden.) Right: Phantom Blaster Dragon (First season manga.)

Although Phantom Blaster Dragon was known from the card lores as the former guardian dragon of the United Sanctuary, whose role was assumed by Soul Saver Dragon after his fall to darkness, prior to Gaiden his time as the guardian deity was not shown at length beyond being his motivation for trying to destroy the Sanctuary. Introduced as the "Guardian Saint Dragon, Sing Saver Dragon" (守護聖竜シングセイバードラゴン Shugoseiryuu Shingu Seibaa Doragon) his appearance was visually identical to his later incarnation save for being implied as a white dragon. This was before any kind of official design for Phantom as the guardian dragon had been established however, and Sing Saver's depiction came from Koshimizu Makoto rather than Itou Akira or any of the other more established artists within the franchise.

While many assume that the cover dragon for BT16 is a new incarnation of Soul Saver Dragon, artist NINNIN--known for work on Phantom Blaster Overlord, Vowing Saber Dragon and others--has rendered the unit using Phantom Blaster's iconic tripartite horns, pauldrons and six wings. A similar borrowing of visual appearance was used for creating visual continuity between BT15: Infinite Rebirth's Dragruler Phantom, the most recent incarnation of the Blaster Dragon. This has led to speculation that Legion of Dragon and Blades will feature Sin Saver Dragon as its cover card, either dealing with the history of Cray prior to Phantom Blaster's fall and the civil war, or in some way restoring Phantom from his abyss dragon form.

In other news, the official Cardfight!! Vanguard Lock on Victory website has been updated with detailed character and deck information. Notably while the character section does feature most of the third season's core cast, none of their Reverse cards have been displayed among their key cards despite ample evidence that their Reverses will appear in the game. FuRyu is making an effort to keep the Reverse storyline under wraps for the player base. In addition to the anime characters, the website also features the returning six protagonists from Ride to Victory, along with four new ones. The new characters' profiles have been translated below.

"N-nice to meet you!"

Tenjou Subaru/天城スバル voiced by Gotou Saori/後藤沙緒里 is a "quiet but energetic boy. He's somewhat introverted, but at his best in a fight."

"Here I come!"

Kusabe Rin/日下部 voiced by Ookubo Rumi/大久保瑠美 is a "neat and tidy girl with a strong heart."

"Now what will you do here, with limits you can't cross?"

Tachibana Kazuya/橘カズヤ voiced by Hiyama Nobuyuki/檜山修之 is a "mature young man, dependable and with a burning soul."

"So, have you prepared yourself?"

Kyuujou Erika/久嬢エリカ voiced by Yahagi Sayuri/矢作紗友里 is "a girl with long golden rolls of hair. She's very prideful, but cute while she's at it."







One mistake that did catch Japanese fans' attention is that Kai is mistakenly listed as a first year high school student in the character profiles, when in reality he's in his second year. (Under the Japanese school system, this is equivalent to a Junior in US schools.) Overall Erika and Kazuya have been the best received of the new protagonists with Japanese fans. Readers are encouraged to visit the Lock on Victory website, as an intense amount of foreign traffic may show international interest in an overseas release of the 3DS game.

News: Kai Toshiki to Play Royal Paladin for Legion Mate, Team League 2014 Regional & Continental Dates

The cover characters for the fourteenth and fifteenth trial decks broke early this morning, confirming fans' initial speculations about the direction of the Cardfight!! Vanguard franchise's fourth chapter, Legion Mate. VG-TD14: Seeker of Hope features cards that will be used by Kai Toshiki in the anime, while VG-TD15: Brawler of Friendship will instead feature Ishida Naoki's units. The news was first leaked through promotional posters sent to card shops, with official images replacing their placeholder equivalents on the Japanese portal soon after. The promotional posters also advertised Legion as a new mechanic, each showing off two new cards united by the same crossing of swords symbol used in Legion Mate's official logo. Moreover, a set of promo cards have given some indication of what the new mechanic may look like.

Set to be released on April 26th and 27th as part of this year's Great Vanguard Festival, the promos are new first vanguards for for Narukami and Royal Paladin intended to work alongside the trial decks' new cards. In addition to their basic Forerunner skills, Brawler Fighting Dracokid (喧嘩屋 ファイティング・ドラコキッド) and Vanguard Seeker File (先陣の探索者ファイル) have Legion-centric skills. File's skill activates automatically; when the vanguard gets "Legion" he can move into the soul to superior call a Blaster Blade Seeker from the deck. Dracokid instead has to be activated in the main phase. By moving into the soul, Dracokid gives the vanguard a skill that when an opponent's frontrow rearguard is put into the drop zone and the vanguard has "Legion," his fighter can counterblast 1 and retire an opponent's unit on the same column as the retired card. The way that these cards are worded defines Legion as a quality any unit can have or have taken away, like Twin Drive!! or Boost, but also specifies particular benefits for the vanguard receiving it, and these units also give Legion a specific icon in the shape of a shield made up of crossed swords like that shown in other promotional materials.

Note that since neither promo card is subclan or clan dependent, they do not necessarily have to be used with Brawler or Seeker vanguards, or even units of the same clan. All they require is that the vanguard have Legion. Currently it's presumed that Blaster Blade Seeker will have an on-call retire skill like past incarnations of Blaster Blade, and because File exchanges himself for a copy of Blade Seeker while Fighting Dracokid does not give anything but a retire skill, the cards are balanced around the idea that Dracokid causes the user to lose one card in advantage while the opponent's loses two where File does not cost card advantage and in exchange the Seeker he calls can only take away one card. If multiple retire skills can be triggered in one turn however, Dracokid can snowball more effectively by retiring two cards on his own in addition to what was accomplished with other skills. Furthermore, putting him in the soul can contribute towards Rising Phoenix's soulblast-to-draw skill. These extended combos specifically depend on being able to access other retire skills for less than 2 counterblast in the first place however, could not function with break ride skills due to the timing involved and can only last for a single turn.

Accounting for how posters have advertised Legion as connecting two cards, the contiguous Blade Seeker and Sacred Wingal artwork, a similar design pattern for Skybeat and Skyhowl Dragon, and the literal reading of Legion's kanji 双闘 as "fighting as a pair," Legion itself seems to be built on the idea of tagging two cards together to work at once. Thus the mechanic both enables the abilities of certain cards as with File and Fighting Dracokid, and can be made useful on its own. The fact that Legion has to be received to use it at all suggests that there are restrictions on when and how many times a unit may get Legion per game.

In international news, the upcoming Team League 2014 has had some of its terminology modified. What were previously identified as national championships are now being called regional championships, and what were called regionals are now being referred to as continental championships. This answers some of the confusion surrounding the idea that League 2014 was previously touting, that the national tournaments for each country would serve as qualifiers for regionals, which to many veteran fighters sounds like a paradoxical inversion of the established tournament structure; qualifying for a smaller event at a larger one. With the change in terminology has also come the dates for the upcoming tournaments, with regionals picking up in April and lasting through July while the continental tournaments will be in July. Specific dates can be found on the official Cardfight portal.

Team League 2014 is a triples format for the English-language Cardfight!! Vanguard TCG, with each team taking the side of either the Cray Defenders protecting the planet from attack or the Void Invaders seeking to conquer it with the otherworldly power of Lock and Reverse. Invader teams are required to play either with Link Joker or "Яeverse" cards empowered by the Void, while Defender teams are banned from using these cards and must fight back with their natural abilities.

News: Galaxy Blaukluger, Raging Form and Nouvelle Vague Place in Seventh Battle City Tournament, Link Joker Takes Third Tachikawa CS

The results from Japan's most recent unofficial team tournament have been published, with team KHP winning the seventh Battle City Sakai VG Trio ChampionShip. KHP's members played a combination of the Blau series, Raging Form and Dragonic Nouvelle Vague decks, following the recent trends of Nova Grappler's rise among the established Kagerou and Shadow Paladin decks. Unlike past Blaukluger decks, KHP forward Gocchan's build emphasized the original Blaukluger as part of a crossride-centric strategy, shifting away from the focus on Mond Blaukluger that contemporary cardfighters have made, and away from the more aggressive break ride format in general. Team midfighter Tokumicchan has card-for-card emulated the deck of reigning national champion Lee Innyeng, importing its Claudas- and Blaster Dark-centric strategies and to some degree finalizing the decklist with his success.

The seventh Battle City Sakai CS was held at 10:00 AM JST on the 16th, and conducted between 64 teams (192 persons) with an entry fee of 3000 yen per team. Each team member was required to use a different clan, but mixing clans within one deck was permitted. The first place team in the tournament received a voucher for an entire case (sixteen boxes) of VG-BT15: Infinite Rebirth, to be released in Japan on the 28th. Second place received a voucher for nine boxes of the set, while third received a voucher for six, and fourth for three boxes. The eighth Battle City CS is currently slated for March 21st.

The Third Tachikawa VGCS also concluded just recently, with Link Joker cardfighter Shiimo taking first place against all odds. Since the rise of Nouvelle Vague and Minerva in the BT14-on format, Link Joker has taken a backseat to competing decks, with usage scaling back with each tournament until it now accounts for just under 6% of the total number of decks played at Tachikawa. This is a strong contrast to the West Tokyo CS of one booster set back, where Link Joker made up one-fourth of all decks played in the tournament. So while Shiimo's Chaos Breaker deck is familiar territory to many, the circumstances are not.

The Third Tachikawa VGCS Deck Breakdown [86 Participants]
 Kagerou 23 (Nouvelle 16, Dominate 7)
Regalia 17
Jewel Knight 8
Revenger 6
Blau 6
Link Joker 5
Eradicators 3
Dimensional Robo 3
Gold Paladin 3 (Ezel 2, Liberator 1)
Beast Deity 2
Silver Thorn 2
Great Nature 2
Magus 1
Celestials 1
Hyakki Vogue 1
Bermuda 1
Aqua Force 1
Musketeers 1 

The Revengers, Link Joker and Eradicators, which not long ago had dominated competitive play at the height of their shared era, have dwindled down to just 6, 5 and 3 decks out of the 86-person tournament. Kagerou and Genesis firmly dominated the third Tachikawa VGCS, building on a string of victories for the two clans. While Genesis is unanimously held together by the Sacred Regalia series led by its restanding grade 3 Artemis and on-soulblast superior call units Chamomile and Melissa, Kagerou is divided between cardfighters playing Dauntless Dominate Dragon “Яeverse” and those using the grade 4 Dragonic Nouvelle Vague. Nouvelle's future was uncertain after the keystone first vanguard that enabled its easy Nouvelle Roman plays, Lizard Soldier Conroe, was restricted last January, but after its success in the Kansai VGCS general confidence in Nouvelle has been restored. Like faruke's Nouvelle deck before them, Shiimo and his fellow top 8 Nouvelle cardfighters were using 4 copies of Calamity Tower Wyvern to make effective use of their soul and counterbalance the loss in consistency from Conroe being hit. Contrast this with Ucchii from the seventh Battle City CS, who played a more conventional deck that ignored the core issue altogether.

In a moment of self-aware humor, the Tachikawa CS homepage listed the Nouvelle Vagues in Tiisupin and Rabbit's decks as grade 3s--not a hard idea to grasp, considering that with the supporting grade 1 Roman in the format, this is how the majority of Japanese cardfighters have treated Nouvelle both before and after Conroe's restriction.

The VGCS tournaments are a series of unofficial tournaments organized by fans and cardshops. Unlike Bushiroad's larger official tournaments, most VGCS events are done using a best of 3, Swiss tournament model. Turnout is typically 70-80 persons, but some events see 100 or more participants, all of whom compete using pseudonyms and internet handles rather than their real names as in official events.

In our final story for tonight, the comprehensive rules for the English edition of the Cardfight!! Vanguard TCG have been amended to officially define Lock and Unlock. The most important definitions provided are that Locked cards are not treated as the same cards as they previously were, they do not have a defined stand or rest position but always Unlock as stand, and that the circle they are on is also modified into a separate type of circle. For more thorough information, see relevant sections 10.1.21 and 10.1.23.

Seventh Battle City Sakai VG Trio CS
Winning Team: KHP
Gocchan/ごっちゃん
Grade 0
x1 Morgenroet (FV)
x4 Regenbogen HT
x3 Sschneeregen DT
x1 Fighting Battleship, Prometheus CT
x4 Schones Wetter CT
x4 Red Lightning CT
Grade 1
x4 Blau Dunkelheit
x4 Tough Boy
x3 Clay-doll Mechanic
x3 Stoic Hani
Grade 2
x4 Blaukluger
x4 Jupiter Blaukluger
x3 Mars Blaukluger
Grade 3
x4 Galaxy Blaukluger
x3 Stern Blaukluger
x1 Mond Blaukluger

Tokumicchan/とくみっちゃん
Grade 0
x2 Frontline Revenger, Claudas (FV)
x4 Healing Revenger HT
x4 Freezing Revenger DT
x4 Grim Revenger CT
x4 Revenger, Air Raid Dragon CT
Grade 1
x4 Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint
x4 Dark Revenger, Mac Lir
x3 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
x2 Revenger, Dark Bond Trumpeter
Grade 2
x4 Revenger of Nullity, Masquerade
x3 Dark Cloak Revenger, Tartu
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger
Grade 3
x4 Revenger, Raging Form Dragon
x4 Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom

Ucchii/ウッチー
Grade 0
x1 Red Pulse Dracokid (FV)
x4 Dragon Dancer, Barbara HT
x3 Seal Dragon, Artpique DT
x2 Gattling Claw Dragon DT
x3 Seal Dragon, Biera CT
x3 Blue-Ray Dracokid CT
x1 Embodiment of Spear, Tahr CT
Grade 1
x2 Dragon Knight, Ashghal
x2 Dragon Monk, Gojo
x1 Demonic Dragon Mage, Kimnara
x4 Nouvelle Roman Dragon
x1 Calamity Tower Wyvern
x2 Dragon Dancer, Maria
x2 Wyvern Guard, Barri
Grade 2
x3 Nouvelle Critique Dragon
x4 Berserk Dragon
x4 Bellicosity Dragon
Grade 3
x3 Dauntless Drive Dragon
x1 Cruel Dragon
Grade 4
x4 Transcendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague

Third Tachikawa VGCS
First place: Shiimo/しぃも
Grade 0
x1 Star-vader, Dust Tail Unicorn (FV)
x3 Star-vader, Weiss Soldat CT
x4 Star-vader, Meteo Liger CT
x3 Star-vader, Scouting Felis DT
x2 Star-vader, Nebula Captor DT
x4 Star-vader Stellar Garage HT
Grade 1
x4 Prison Gate Star-vader, Palladium
x3 Demonic Claw Star-vader, Lanthanum
x2 Mana Shot Star-vader, Neon
x4 Barrier Star-vader, Promethium
Grade 2
x3 Strike Star-vader, Krypton
x4 Star-vader, Colony Maker
x4 Unrivaled Star-vader, Radon
Grade 3
x4 Star-vader, Infinite Zero Dragon
x4 Star-vader, Chaos Breaker Dragon
x1 Star-vader, Nebula Lord Dragon

Runner-up: Tiisupin/てぃーすぴん
Grade 0
x1 Red Pulse Dracokid (FV)
x3 Seal Dragon, Biera CT
x4 Embodiment of Spear, Tahr CT
x4 Gattling Claw Dragon DT
x1 Seal Dragon, Artpique DT
x4 Seal Dragon, Shirting HT
Grade 1
x1 Dragon Monk, Gojo
x4 Nouvelle Roman Dragon
x4 Seal Dragon, Rinocross
x4 Calamity Tower Wyvern
Grade 2
x2 Hidden Dragon, Striken
x1 Dominate Drive Dragon
x4 Nouvelle Critique Dragon
x3 Berserk Dragon
x1 Demonic Dragon Berserker, Kumbhanda
Grade 3
x1 Cruel Dragon
x4 Dauntless Drive Dragon
Grade 4
x4 Transcendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague